Is the Delhi Police using any amount from the Rs. 1,000 crore of women safety fund?

30 Nov, 2013

In the aftermath of December 16 gang rape case in New Delhi, a Rs. 1,000 crore corpus, named after the victim, was announced by the government which was meant to be utilised by the police force so as to make cities safer place for women.

In this regard, an application was filed with the Department of Economic Affairs under the Right to Information (RTI) Act seeking to get the details of the fund utilised so far. The reply, provided by the Undersecretary of the Demand Section, Department of Economic Affairs, stated that no scheme has been approved so far and the detailed procedure for operationalising the fund is being worked out. As the departments and ministries are identifying relevant schemes that can be funded from the corpus, no money has been spent till now.

In a reply to another RTI query, the Undersecretary of Ministry of Home Affairs stated that the ministry has requested Delhi Police to submit a detailed project with specific proposals along with financial implication. However, Delhi Police is yet to send any proposal to seek funds from this corpus.

It raises a mute question: How much time is required to make a proposal? Are we waiting for more cases to hog the limelight before any action is taken?